Tipsheet

‘Pay Us What You Owe Us,’ Says the Sports League That’s $50 Million in the Red

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  July 21, 2025 11:45 AM

The WNBA All-Star game kicked off on Saturday, and the players elected to make a statement to the league with their warm-up jerseys, which all read: "Pay us what you owe us." 

The kind statement has been routine in women's sports in recent years, where athletes regularly call for equal pay. However, the reality is that their games don't draw the same crowds, much less the same revenue, as their male counterparts.

In 2024, the average NBA game drew an average of 1.5 million viewers on national television, whereas the WNBA drew less than half that, at 660,000 viewers. For the NBA, their average viewership represented a 2 percent decline from the previous year, whereas the WNBA set a record high. 

In revenue, the NBA drew in $10 billion in the 2023/2024 season, whereas the WNBA got around $200 million. In other words, the revenue of the female players is 50 times less than that of the male athletes. And profit margins are even worse for them, as the WNBA has been operating at a net loss of $40-50 million per year. 

To make matters more complicated, the WNBA since its founding in 1996 has been subsidized by the NBA. They provide $15 million annually to the WNBA for critical needs like player salaries, marketing, league operations, and facilities. In total since the league's inception, they have received upwards of $400 million from the men's league.

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Unfortunately for the WNBA players, what they are owed by the league is a shared debt of around $382,000 a year, combining both their annual profit losses and NBA subsidization. Their average salary is only around $102,000.